The historic City of Covington has many stories to tell. Founded in 1815, the spirit of the city grew significantly during the 19th century as German immigrants moved here creating diverse and distinct neighborhoods. This growth opened the door to new manufacturing and local merchants who situated themselves within the first commercial center of the city – between Third & Fourth Streets near Greenup and Scott Streets. With close proximity to the courthouse and the post office, the businesses, public market and retail stores in this area flourished as the city grew. Today this area is still very diverse with multiple restaurants and bars all overlooking another historical landmark, the Roebling Suspension Bridge.
The historical energy of a growing river city is a ghost hunter’s dream. There are two types of hauntings that can exist in this environment – Residual and Intelligent. A Residual haunting is like a movie clip that is replayed over and over again. The spirit entity cannot interact with a person. It performs the same action – like walking through a room – over and over again with no reaction to someone else in the room with it. This type of haunting can also manifest itself with a certain smell, such as cigar smoke, or with noises, like footsteps in a high traffic area or people talking. An Intelligent haunting is one where the entity will respond to you when you ask it a question or seek a response. These are the most fun for ghost hunters because the response can come in any form. It can come in audible sounds, moving objects or even temperature changes. Most often an intelligent haunting can be picked up on video recorders or on audio recording devices such as an EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena). Question and answer sessions with an intelligent haunting can aid in discovering more about the spirit and the location that is being investigated. Since everyone has access to some kind of recording device, it is the quickest method of investigation for anyone who may want to research unusual events that occur at their location. As a ghost hunter, it is always a win-win situation whenever one of these types of hauntings exists.
Our next paranormal investigation took us right into the historical business center of Covington - The Down Under Restaurant & Tavern located at 128 Park Place. The lot, which sits on the corner of Park and Court, was initially used as a horse livery in the 19th century. The current structure was built for The Union Light, Heat and Power Company in the early 1900’s. After 1950 it was remodeled for additional office space and a bar/restaurant moved into the basement of the building where the Down Under now resides. Since the building has been used for a variety of purposes throughout the years, there are bound to be residual and intelligent spirit energy at this location. Amy, the owner of the Down Under, provided us with many stories of apparitions, voices and unexplained sounds that she and her staff have experienced over the years.
On the early morning of August 8th, our investigative team included Rita Volz, Jayme Cundiff, Laura Stupak, Robin Ahrens and Reverend Dan Dunham, medium. Dan has been on several of our investigations and always provides some interesting “behind the scenes” information that our cameras and audio recorders fail to pick up. Dan sensed a lot of residual energy at the Down Under specifically in the back rooms and entry ways. As our investigation progressed, Dan was able to identify a specific male spirit that was associated with an occupation connected with horses or automobiles. This corresponds to the location’s original business of a livery back in the late 1800’s. Dan states that this male presence is one that died there and it feels at home at this location. We were unable to pick up any audio recordings from this spirit and historically, we were unable to find any newspaper articles about a death at this location. This isn’t unusual based on the type of news coverage that was reported at that time.
We used a variety of devices to capture paranormal events that morning. We placed several cameras and audio recorders throughout the restaurant. Temperature gauges and motion detectors were also used. While we are still researching the hours of audio and video we collected that morning, our preliminary findings lead us to believe that the Down Under undoubtedly has spirits who reside there. Some of those spirits want to be there and some that are trapped there because of past events that hold them to the site.
The Down Under is a unique establishment with lots of history. Experience it for yourself and who knows, you may have someone sitting right next to you and not even know it!
